MPs Vote Against Labour's Second-Job Ban Bid

A Labour move to ban MPs from holding paid directorships or consultancies has been defeated in the Commons after a day dominated by a furious row over second jobs.

Voting was 287 to 219, a majority of 68, after an ill-tempered debate which followed an angry clash on the issue between David Cameron and Ed Miliband at Prime Minister's questions.

During PMQs, the Labour leader appeared to surprise Mr Cameron by pledging that Labour would extend its proposed ban to include MPs serving as paid trade union officials.

And as the debate got under way later, Labour attempted to persuade the Government to accept an amendment including the union ban, a move rejected by Commons Leader William Hague.

Opening the debate, the shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle said Labour's motion proposed that after the start of the next Parliament no MP should be permitted to hold a directorship or a paid consultancy post.

She said: "This is a commitment that we will honour in the Labour Party by changing the Parliamentary Labour Party standing orders.

"The perception is growing that some MPs are only it for what they can get rather than what they can give. This is not an impression which I believe we can allow to fester for any longer.

"'You are all in it for yourselves' - How many times have we heard that said?"

Labour backbenchers angrily attacked Tory MPs

Merseyside MP Steve Rotheram pointed at the Government benches and said: "Nobody forces us to come in here and get paid £67,000, which is a king's ransom to a lot of the people that we represent and they don't need second jobs. But if they do, there are food banks in every one of their constituencies, go and volunteer in them."

But Labour's proposals were ridiculed by Mr Hague, in a witty speech in which he questioned if Labour would limit MPs from earning money from writing good books.

To laughs, he said: "The only way to ensure sales from such a book remained under their cap would be to write an unsuccessful book, of which there are also examples on the Labour benches.

"By what logic according to (Labour) is it acceptable for an MP to write an unsuccessful book but not a successful one? By what logic is it to write an unsuccessful book but not engage in some other activity no more threatening to the public interest than an unsuccessful book?"

He pointed out to Labour MPs that their party's former prime minister, James Callaghan, had a farm.

Mr Hague said: "Would Lord Callaghan have had to resign from the House every time there was a good harvest and then try to return to it when the crops failed?"

Defending second jobs for MPs, Conservative Dr Phillip Lee, who runs a GP practice, said in his time as an MP that some of the best contributions in Parliament had come from people still working and up to date in their field.

And Liberal Democrat John Hemming spoke about his own situation, declaring that he earns £180,000 a year as a director of a company he set up in 1983.

But he said that took up just four hours a month and put him in a better position to help constituents by, for example, paying for a benefits adviser and taking legal action against his local council to clean up the streets.